The world suffers an epic tragedy as a tsunami spreads death across Asia. An on-the-scene look at how it happened--and whether the carnage could have been avoided

They are burning bodies on the shore of Tamil Nadu in southern India, and Manikimuttu, 24, whose grandfather is among the 60 or so in the pyre, is crazed with grief, one moment scooping water into cooking pots and throwing it on the flames, the next collapsing in uncontrollable sobs. They are collecting bodies from the normally green lawn in front of the old mosque in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, now littered with a thick debris of dead snakes, chickens and humans--at just one collection point in the city, authorities have gathered 3,500 corpses. On the Andaman coast in Thailand, soldiers are...